How To Conduct A Body Assessment

Step-by-step Instructions

Here is what you need to do...

Step 1

[Personal Trainer] Here we have Nik, 19 years old student at Georgia Tech and he's been in a relative rut in terms of his training progress over the last better part of a year. This is not uncommon for beginner trainers or people of a very advanced lifting habits to experience training plateaus.

Step 2

[Personal Trainer] Nik, why don't you tell me a little about what you do, and why you're not happy with your progress.

Step 3

[Nik] Well I guess it can best be summarized as, I work out once a day, I hit every muscle group and I do about Three sets per muscle group. what I think I should improve on would be - its just the my weight - it seems to hover around 160 pounds. I can't seem to really mass up.

Step 4

[Personal Trainer] And that's been constant for the last...
[Nik] I'd say a year.

Step 5

[Personal Trainer] Okay, so nik's weight has been essentially stuck at 160 pounds for the last year and and without looking at the nuts and bolts of what you're doing, let's more focus on what you're getting out of it.

Step 6

A much more harsh way of looking at it would be to say that not all heck of a lot, at least for past year. This is the quintessential definition of a training plateau precisely the reason where guys like me come in. I can take that next year of trial and error, if you will, if you stick it out that long. I mean, you look like a hard worker Nick I'm sure you're the type of guy who will bang his head into a brick wall until he eventually falls down. However, sometimes it's better just to take a step to the side and walk around that massive brick wall and with my recommendations, that's essentially what are going to do.

Step 7

Now you're training each body part essentially every day. Now is that to entail seven days a week?
[Nik] Seven days a week, yes.

Step 8

[Personal Trainer] Well, Nick that's hard-core. I can do a lot with you with the work and think like that.
[Nik] I am very disciplined. I never skip a day.

Step 9

[Personal Trainer] The best people to work with, on my end, our people that are victims of their own work ethic. Rather than the other way around. For that reason, I can work with that. Well, Nick your training is important. I'm glad you've recognized that can be a potential downfall in your route to hugeness. Diet is also fundamentally important. We'll talk about that in a second.

Step 10

First, you sent me some pictures when we initially spoke. I'm going to go ahead and evaluate them from the standpoint of what I do as a professional, but first tell me what you want to bring up according to these pictures. This is a photo that Nick took a couple weeks back.

Step 11

[Nik] Okay, in this photo I was I was doing lats, so is holding weights out. I guess I'd like my abs - more definition. Pecs, everyone wants bigger pecs. I think I need more traps, too.

Step 12

[Personal Trainer] Your abs are relatively defined. You have you've got a nice split here through the center, the so-called six pack here, this could be just a salty meal the night before and a little bit of water retention.

Step 13

I will tell you that it is very very very difficult to maintain a ripped set of abdominals while you're trying to gain a lot of lean muscular weight. It's very difficult to. It can be done, through meticulous monitoring of your diet and watching your calories if you keep the cardio up. You just want to be cognizant of the fact that the cuts come after you build the mass. If you try to do both, you get nothing. Its the old adage in personal training.

Step 14

Your arm development, Nick doesn't look bad, based on what I see here they look relatively balanced.

Step 15

Let's go ahead and take a look at your back here. Tell me what you see there Nik. You mentioned before the wanted train your back more or you didn't feel you trained enough.

Step 16

[Nik] Well, the reason why I don't feel like I train it enough it is I just don't do any exercises that target it. Like I could row. I don't row or anything. I mean, it seems to look fine, but I'd kind of like - bigger shoulders.

Step 17

[Personal Trainer] Absolutely. Well I've seen your program and we can do that also. I will tell you that your back development is phenomenal, considering you haven't really trained it a lot directly. Your lats here. They sweep out nicely and your rhomboids, which are located right behind the scapula, look great. From there and tell your middle traps, all the way down to your spinal erectors. You have a extremely defined back. It's not just a function of low body fat. You generally have some muscle in your back. So, you've got a great slate to build from - when it comes to that.

Step 18

You mention your traps. This is where the bulk of muscle in your traps is actually going to be. Most people consider their traps from here up and I tell you and I tell every one of my clients this, the no neck look does not look all that great. Your traps tend to grow out a little bit and you have a long neck, we're going to keep it that way. Your neck will get more developed from what we're going to do. It looks fine from here. What I see is just an overall lack of muscle mass, possibly a little bit of overtraining. I really don't see a whole lot of imbalance according to these pictures.

Special Attention

Difficulties people often experience or parts that need special attention to do it right.